RED-BREASTED GOOSE. 517 



eggs on the Boganida river on the 6th of July, and the egg which is 

 figured in the present work was obtained on the 1st of July, about two 

 hundred miles due east of that locality. When I was in the valley of the 

 Yenesay I gave the two mates belonging to Schwanenberg's schooner a 

 commission to collect eggs for me in the delta where they were stationed 

 in lat. 70^. They were fortunate enough to come suddenly upon a Red- 

 breasted Goose sitting on her nest on one of the islands in the delta,. They 

 shot her before she flew off, unfortunately breaking one of the two eggs on 

 which she was sitting. I neither saw nor heard anything more of this 

 species until the return journey on the 28th of July. A few miles south 

 of the island where the nest was taken, as we were slowly steaming up the 

 river against stream and close in shore, I saw several of these handsome 

 birds with their young broods on the banks. Unfortunately the captain 

 was racing to Doodinka, anxious to arrive there before one of his rivals, so 

 that I was unable to persuade him to stop. The mates told me that the 

 nest was indistinguishable from that of the Bean- Goose, except that it was 

 somewhat smaller. My egg measures 2'7 inch in length and 1'8 inch in 

 breadth. The colour is creamy white, with obscure traces of an under- 

 lying green shell ; the surface is rather smooth but not glossy, and the 

 shell is very fragile. Middendorff's eggs varied in length from 2'8 to 2'7 

 inch, and in breadth from 1' 76 to 1*73 inch. No others are known. 



The only information which we possess respecting its winter habits is 

 that furnished us by Radde, who states that it is a very gregarious bird, 

 always seen in flocks, which frequent the pastures on the southern shores 

 of the Caspian during the day, and retire far out to sea for the night. 



Dresser's statement that the Red-breasted Goose has been met with 

 breeding on the Caspian is a myth, which probably derives its origin from 

 a paragraph in Blanford's 'Eastern Persia/ where it is stated, on the 

 authority of Col. St. John, that a species of Goose breeds in the marshes 

 near Shiraz. There can be no doubt whatever that the species breeding in 

 Persia is the Grey-lag Goose. 



The Red-breasted Goose is intermediate in size between the Bernacle 

 Goose and the Brent Goose ; the female is slightly smaller than the male, 

 but the two sexes do not differ in the colour of their plumage. The adult 

 Red-breasted Goose is one of the handsomest birds that visits the British 

 Islands, though, like the Harlequin Duck, the pattern of its coloration is 

 somewhat loud, but is composed of only three colours, glossy black, snowy 

 white, and rich chestnut. The general colour of the upper parts is black, 

 interrupted by a narrow white ring across the upper back, the median and 

 greater wing-coverts are tipped with white, and the sides of the rump and 

 the upper tail-coverts are white ; the black on the crown extends through 

 the eye to the chin and upper throat, leaving a large white patch between 

 the eye and the bill, and a still larger chestnut patch on the sides of the 



